


Happiness and Loneliness

by junkster



Category: Duran Duran
Genre: Dressing Room, Groupies, M/M, Smoking
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-01-05
Updated: 2013-01-05
Packaged: 2017-11-23 20:14:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/626093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/junkster/pseuds/junkster
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John's always been loyal when it comes to his friends, and he's not afraid to argue their corner. An argument with a groupie changes his plans for the night, big time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Happiness and Loneliness

**Author's Note:**

> **Part one of a two-parter.**
> 
>  
> 
> **Title pinched from DJ Tomcraft's 'Loneliness'.**

She's pretty - better than pretty, really - but already annoyingly clingy, hanging onto his arm as though he might get snapped up by someone else while her head’s turned. He’s already spotted another girl on the other side of the dressing room, giggling about something with Andy, and he’s beginning to think it might be a wise move to try and lose this one in the crowd if he can and move in on Andy’s territory instead.

He’s so distracted plotting and planning that he only realises after she starts tugging on his sleeve that she’s said his name five times already.

“What is it?” he asks, turning to meet her slightly too-wide eyes. “Why don’t you go and meet some of the others, eh? Simon’s over there by the drinks table, or look - Roger’s on his own over there on the couch.”

“Oh, no,” she says, wrinkling her nose, not even trying to be polite about it.

“What d’you mean, ‘oh no’?” John asks in surprise.

“Well, he’s the quiet one, isn’t he? He’s the shy one, and I wanna have a good time!”

“He’s perfectly capable of blowing your mind, believe me,” John tells her firmly, unable to keep a defensive note out of his voice.

“But he’s not like the rest of you, is he? I mean, he’s always at the back of photos, and he doesn’t wear make-up or dye his hair like you do, and the other girls say he doesn’t go for groupies, anyway.”

John stares at her incredulously, his whole attention taken up now. “He doesn’t have to wear make-up, he looks good enough without it, and just because he’s not an absolute slut like me doesn’t mean he’s fucking celibate!” He waves an arm in Roger’s direction. “ _Look_ at him. What’s not to like?”

“I just don’t think he’s what I’m after,” she says, utterly unconvinced. “He seems a bit...weird.”

“Weird? _Weird?!_ Look at me!” John exclaims, gesturing to his clothes and then to the rest of them, dotted around the room. “He’s the least weird of _any_ of us.”

“And by saying that you’ve just admitted he’s the odd one out to the rest of you!”

“You’d be bloody lucky to have him!”

A hint of irritation is creeping into her expression now, and she takes her hand off his arm to reply cattily: “Maybe you should go and fuck him then, since he seems to be a complete _loner_ and you seem to think the sun shines out of his arse!”

Mouth open, John watches as she turns on her heel and walks away, trying her best to sashay and managing more of a totter. He wants to yell ‘call yourself a fan?!’ at her back, but doesn’t in the fear that she might turn around again. Instead he turns his head to look at Roger, who, surprise surprise, is the only one who’s noticed anything amiss. Sitting slumped and tired at one end of the couch, he raises his eyebrows slightly and John shakes his head, telling him everything’s okay. Roger holds his eyes for a moment before nodding once and going back to watching the melee. John hopes to god he didn’t hear any of that conversation - not her side, since it would be sure to hurt his feelings, and not his side, since _fuck_ , he really had sounded more than a bit besotted, hadn’t he?

And now he’s lost the girl he’d been intending to take back to the hotel with him, and Andy’s already snuck off with his, and there are only slim pickings left since the managers started clearing people out, slow but sure. Aside from that, John’s feeling kind of antagonistic towards them _all_ now, paranoia making him wonder just how many of them think those unkind thoughts about Roger, or _any_ of them, for that matter. He understands girls not liking all of them, but to call someone a loner, to talk about him as if he’s there for _their_ enjoyment and nothing else, seems insane.

He’s always been like this. Tell him a movie or song he likes is bad and he’ll play it a hundred times in a row. Tell him his hair doesn’t suit him and he’ll leave it like that for as long as it takes to make a point.

Tell him his friend’s unattractive and he’ll give you every damn reason why he is.

Damn.

 

So that’s how he ends up slumped on the couch next to Roger, people-watching and sighing with resignation. Andy’s already pulled, Simon’s being snogged to death up against the wall nearby, and Nick’s got one on each arm, heading for the door.

John turns his head against the back of the couch and fixes Roger with a petulant glare.

“Why can’t you just go on a mad groupie-fucking spree for once? What’s up with you, eh?””

Apparently his expression is annoyed enough, accompanied by that mad, mad sentence, to send Roger, who’s tired but buzzing with adrenaline, into hysterics. And, well aware that he’s lost his mind, John finds it infectious enough to wind up bursting into laughter too, his head tipped back against the couch cushions, his ribs aching with the pure abandon of it. And god, he loves it when he manages to make Roger laugh properly, a full on losing-it laugh, because it’s not an easy thing to make him lose control and when he does...fuck, he’s cute.

Fuck.

He’s _cute_.

John groans amidst the laughter and presses both hands over his eyes, stretching his weary shoulders back and blocking out the crazy, crazy world. When he’s calmed down enough to return to reality, he brings his head back down with a sigh.

Roger is sitting cross-legged now, leaning back into the corner of the couch, watching him with a small, fond smile. His eyes are still bright from the tears of laughter and John can see the red lines on his hands where he’d held his sticks earlier. He’d been wearing those fingerless gloves for a while, but now he’s decided to go _au naturale_ he’s having to build his calluses back up, and his skin looks raw.

“What the fuck kind of question was that, John?” he asks quietly, amused, toying with the laces of his boots.

John sighs again and grins at him, propping his head on his hand. “I was just defending your honour to that girl, you know. She wanted to know why you weren’t getting it on with anyone. I told her, you’re not quite the slut that the rest of us are.”

Roger holds his gaze for a long moment, searching all too perceptively for John’s liking, then he shrugs and looks down at his hands. “Why did she storm off?”

“I said something stupid,” John tells him vaguely, but honestly.

“About me?”

Roger looks up at him from under his dark lashes and John is frozen. For a moment all he wants to do is blurt out what he’s really thinking, what he’s feeling. His heart skips up a couple of notches.

“Um...maybe,” he says evasively, then quickly pats down his pockets and asks: “Look, I’m going outside for a fag - you want one?”

Watching him with that smile again, Roger nods and follows him up off the couch.

 

John has no idea where he’s going as he leads the way up two flights of stairs and along corridors, dark and empty. He’s expecting Roger to stop him, to remind him (with good reason) that they’re not supposed to be there, that they’ll probably get locked in all night, but he doesn’t say a word, just follows him, a warm and solid presence by his side. Eventually, John finds a balcony he likes the look of, adjoined to a fancy office. He has no idea why all the doors are open to any fool who happens to wander in, but he’s not complaining. As he slides the glass door open, he breathes in the cool night air deeply and feels it soothe his mind.

All he needs is a smoke and ten minutes away from the madness, and he’ll be back to normal, he thinks. And by back to normal he means he’ll stop thinking about shoving Roger up against that big desk in the room behind them and...

“Got a light?” Roger asks, pulling a pack of Craven A out of his pocket and sliding two out, handing one to John.

“Yeah,” John says, slipping a zippo out the back pocket of his leather pants, one he’d pinched off the table in the dressing room. He gives it a quick shake before flipping it open and lighting it, holding it between them. They both slide their cigarette between their lips and John feels his heart pick up with excitement again when they lean in together, the flame flashing in Roger’s dark eyes. He watches Roger suck to get his lit, making his cheekbones stand out, sharp and pretty. Christ. He almost sets his own on fire in the distraction.

He flicks the lighter shut as they both stand up straight, smoke curling around them.

“Thanks,” Roger mumbles around his cigarette, turning to look at the view.

They fold their arms on the top rail of the balcony and lean forwards, side by side, looking down on the city lights in the cold night sky. John pulls his jacket tighter around himself and Roger shifts a step sideways until they’re pressed together, shoulder to shoulder.

The nicotine and the silence and the friend at his side help to calm John’s mind. He never has to worry about how he is around Roger, never has; they just exist together, side by side, entirely easy in each other’s company.

Roger’s always been sensitive to the transitory nature of their travel; the feeling of being one very insignificant being in a town or city he may well never see again, full of thousands of people he’ll never know. It seems to always make him long for permanency - his home, his family - and yet he loves what they do. He needs time alone, sometimes, to think and just be himself, but he needs _them_ too - his friends. John, on the other hand, is fairly inured to the craziness of being on the move, but he hates being alone and it’s made him protective of the few constant things that come with him - his cassette player, his little black book of numbers, and Charlie, Nick, Roger and Andy. He has a wonderful determination to keep these things close and safe.

“So you’re going back alone tonight?” Roger speaks up after a while, shooting him a faintly mischievous smile around his cigarette before turning back to the city.

“Yeah, yeah,” John rolls his eyes, blowing smoke up into the sky. “Unless I can find someone on the way.”

“How the hell did you manage that, then?”

“What d’you mean?” John asks, not sure whether to be put out or not.

Roger doesn’t look his way, just waves a hand in a vaguely up-and-down gesture at his body. “You’ve always got someone.”

“Well...first time for everything,” John says defensively.

Roger glances at him with that slight smile again and John thinks that if it wasn’t for the fags he might take his face in his hands and kiss him, but it’s not the fags, it’s more that he’s a bloody coward.

He loves seeing Roger so at ease and so willing to take the piss out of him. So often these days he’s being tormented by cameras and press people, looking down at the floor, personality stunted by his shyness.

Thinking about that makes John think of that girl again, of how she dismissed Roger from what little she’d seen of him on telly, and his blood starts boiling again. He wishes she could see him now, leaning against the railing, hips cocked, perfect arse, perfect _body_ , the way the breeze picks up the open sides of his white shirt, flapping gently against the mesh of his top underneath, his eyes sharp and confident, lips soft and...

He swallows and looks away. 

His hand trembles slightly as he brings the cigarette back to his lips and takes a deep drag. His adrenaline is spiking again, rushing through him, making him want to do something crazy, and god knows what he’s thinking is crazy.

“You can come back with me, if you want?” Roger offers, crushing the butt of his fag out underfoot. “I know the company doesn’t compare, but...if you want.”

John’s heart almost slams out of his ribcage. He has to exhale slowly before he’s even faintly sure his voice’ll be steady.

“Come back with you for what?”

Roger glances at him as he answers: “I dunno, watch one of your beloved Bond films or something, or...”

He trails off, and, gazing out at the wide spread of city lights in front of them, suddenly, slowly, turns his head to meet John’s eyes. 

The realisation that has dawned there scares John to the bone.

Roger stares at him, a variety of things flashing through his eyes - confusion, uncertainty, disbelief - then he says slowly: “You want to _fuck_ me.”

John’s lips part, no words coming out, feeling his eyes get big and terrified, pupils flooding his irises as a heady, dizzy mixture of panic and excitement take over his brain.

He can’t even gauge what Roger’s thinking, the inscrutable bastard, but the fact that he’s just said that without even a blush or a stammer or any hint of disgust must mean something, right? He throws his cigarette down, pressing it into the cement with his boot, wishing the ground would open up for him.

He knows there’s no point in saying a shocked ‘what?!’ or pretending he has no idea what Roger’s talking about - it’s clear from the look in Roger’s eyes that he’s worked it out already.

“John,” he presses softly, standing up straight and turning his body to look at him properly. “Am I right?”

John breathes out the last lungful of smoke that he’s been holding in and nods, resigned to the fact that he’s either about to get a fist to the face or the alienation of one of his best friends.

Roger eyes him pensively for a moment before taking a step closer. His chin is tilted up, confident despite a hint of uncertainty in his eyes, probably that he’s being set up for a fall.

“You want to fuck me?” he asks again, words so soft John has to lean in to hear them properly. They make his stomach twist in agonising lust.

He curls his hand tightly around the top of the railing, knuckles white.

“Yeah,” he admits breathlessly, the word rushing out of him as he gazes into Roger’s dark eyes, pinning him to the spot. “Yeah, Rog. I want to fuck you...I _want_ you...”

Roger’s gaze flickers to John’s lips, then back up to his eyes. For a second John thinks he might lean up and kiss him, but he doesn’t, just keeps on watching him until eventually something seems to settle in his eyes, like he’s come to a conclusion.

He nods once and inclines his head towards the glass door. “C’mon,” he says quietly. “Let’s go.”

John’s entire body shivers with desire, and he follows.


End file.
